Celebrities Don't Have to Worry About .XXX Domains

by Rayne Millaray

As for the rest of us, well ... the porn ghetto launches next month.

Hoping to grab AngelinaJolie.xxx or BarackObama.xxx before some other quick-draw domain parker? Perhaps you really want to bone Margaret Thatcher, and are going to dedicate a dot-triple-x domain to her? Or maybe you're more interested in something a little more illegal? Either way, you're screwed. They've been banned from ever being registered with the .xxx domain by ICM Registry.

Why? We'll let them tell it.

"The reason we banned the celebrities' names was because it's very difficult for them to trademark their names. We didn't want to have the embarrassment of AngelinaJolie.xxx coming up at the launch of the new domain." says Stuart Lawley, the chief executive of ICM Registry.

David Cameron, Tony Blair, Donald Trump are just three of 15,000 names of celebrities, royalty, religious leaders and politicians banned from the .xxx domain. Lawley wouldn't confirm or deny which known names were on the list of banned ones, but did say that anyone caught trying to imitate someone they're not would be dealt with swiftly.

And if you're hoping to get a domain, you better act fast! During ICM's preregistration period, 900,000 people and companies sent in inquiries, even though the whole idea of an .xxx registry is still opposed by a lot of people and groups, including most of the adult industry.